Subject: NAMD 2.0b3 Release Announcement

From: Jim Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1999 12:50:05 -0600 (EST)

NAMD 2.0b3 Announcement
=======================

The Theoretical Biophysics Institute at the University of Illinois is
proud to announce the public release of a new version of the molecular
dynamics simulation program, NAMD2.  NAMD2 is a major improvement over
its predecessor, NAMD 1.5, in both computation speed and simulation
features.

This release is a binary-only beta version of NAMD2.  It has already
received extensive testing inside our group, but we still have some
additional testing and code cleanup before releasing the source.
Nevertheless, we believe it to be stable, and think you will find it a
significant improvement over NAMD 1.5.

NAMD2 is available via the web at http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/namd/.
Mail any questions or comments to [email-masked].

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NAMD 2.0 New Features

- Reads CHARMM (and X-PLOR) formatted structure and parameter files.

- Supports periodic and non-periodic MD simulations.

- Can use DPME for full electrostatics for periodic simulations, and
DPMTA for non-periodic simulations.  Cutoff simulations are also
supported.

- Triple timestepping.

- Rigid bonds to hydrogen atoms.

- Fixed atoms (Atoms which are constrained not to move do not have
forces calculated for them).

- Berendsen and Langevin piston constant pressure methods.

- Steered Molecular Dynamics (SMD).

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Problems?

For problems or questions, send email to [email-masked].  If you
think you have found a bug, please include what machine you are
running on, and, if possible, a dump of the program output and/or a
copy of your input files.  As a beta release, we expect you will find
a few rough edges in the program or documentation.  Your feedback will
help us to fix these.

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NAMD2 Known Deficiencies

- DPME has not yet received extensive testing.

- NAMD2 requires X-PLOR or CHARMM to produce the .psf structure input
files.  If you don't have one of these, you probably can't use NAMD2 yet.

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